


art of persistence

by hart_of_gold



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:42:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22298020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hart_of_gold/pseuds/hart_of_gold
Summary: They start off as senate aide and new republic commander but at times goes on they become something more, and as time changes so do there roles and responsibilities. As war threatens the galaxy, they try to find time for eachother while keeping what they do a secret from everyone else.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Original Character(s), Poe Dameron/Original Female Character(s), Poe Dameron/Reader, Poe Dameron/You
Comments: 1
Kudos: 28





	1. how they first meet

**Author's Note:**

> so this story is basically a lunch of one shots strung together from prompts I got on my tumblr which is @generaldameronss if you wanna head over and send me prompts for this story :) 
> 
> prompt: ‘Your my body guard and your kind of cute.’

Don’t look at me like that.” 

“Like what?” Poe Dameron is sitting in a chair next to you, and you can feel his eyes on you. You’re trying to ignore the heat rising to your cheeks, and try to look away. 

“Like your trying to size me up.” You say, “Your giving me those classic guy in a bar eyes, like your trying to figure out how to get me to go home with you.” 

“Well good thing I’ll be going somewhere way more fun than that.” He replies, and you know he's smiling.

“Don’t remind me.” You tell him, crossing your arms and finally looking in his direction. Ten minutes before, Senator Organa had left the two of you alone together to get acquainted while she went to take care of something, an excuse so vague you knew it couldn’t be true. She’d decided to send you on a diplomatic mission to talk to the CEO of a company in the outer rim that she suspected was selling weapons to the first order, which you were fine with. The part you weren’t fine with? Her giving you a babysitter. Poe Dameron, Commander in the New Republic Navy, and your ‘protection’ for this assignment. 

You’d only just met him, but you knew his type, reckless, impatient, and cute. But he reminds you of someone you’d rather not think about. As much as you didn’t like him, you have to admit he is pretty cute. “Look, we’re going to do this together and then we come back here and we’ll be done with it.” 

“Yeah I’m pretty sure that’s how this works.” 

“Don’t patronize me.” 

“I’m not I just-” 

Flash forward twenty four hours later as the two of you run down the halls what you thought was the corporations headquarters but what turns out to be a first order outpost whose job it is to receive the weapons from the company you had gone to investigate. 

When you enter the original company building hours before you’d been told to wait because the CEO was in a meeting at the time, and after you’d convinced a very impatient Poe to wait you sat for what felt like forever before the secretary came out and told you that you would need to take a transport to get to the CEO’s office. It was a little unorthodox but you’d gone along with it and that’s how you’d ended up in the outpost, cornered by about fifteen stormtroopers who ‘just wanted to talk’. 

Of course Poe had shot one of them first, hence the running and the string of curses coming out of your mouth. “You couldn’t have just gone with it?” You ask him, slightly breathless from the speed of your escape. It had been a while since you’d had to flee for your life. “We were on strict orders not to engage!”

“I don’t like having a blaster in my face!” He yells back, grabbing your arm and pulling you into a nearby doorway. He motions for you to go behind him, and he looks out of the doorway, holding his blaster out the door so he can shoot the troopers who were coming down the hallway. When he takes a step back, the door closes in front of him and you turn around to see that there isn’t another hallway behind you but a wall: the two of you are trapped in a closet. 

You look around, noting various brooms and buckets of cleaning equipment. You sigh, taking a seat on the edge of one of the shelves, trying not to knock it over and make a loud noise. “Fitting that we would end up in a janitor's closet.” You say, rolling your eyes so that he knew you were not happy, in case it wasn’t already clear. 

“At least we don’t have to run anymore?” He offers, leaning against the shelf next to you. 

“Yeah like they won’t check the closet.” 

“I don’t know-” He presses his ear to the door, trying to hear the sound of the patrol running down the hall looking for you. 

“You won’t be able to hear through that door.” You tell him. “Just sit, they probably passed.” 

“Oh so your acknowledging that this was a good idea.” He tries. 

“Not even close.” You reply. 

“So you were fed up with me within seconds of meeting me, which is a record usually people just wait until the second meeting.” He says, leaning in to start a conversation, which makes you uncomfortable considering you don’t want to have a personal conversation and your being pursued by the first order. “Any reason why?” 

“Did you really just ask me that?” You say a little harsher than you’d meant to. “Sorry, I mean is this really the time.” 

“I've been told I ask personal questions at the wrong time.” He tells you cracking a smile along with it. 

“Not going to say anything to that or anything else you asked.” You turn away from him.

“Fine then.” He says, copying your action.

The two of you stay like that for a while, just two new republic representatives waiting in a cleaning storage closet on a first order outpost with stormtroopers looking for them. You wondered what he was thinking about because that’s what you were thinking about, how awkward things were. You thought about just lying, and not talking about it but for some reason you felt the need to tell someone and the awkward silence was really getting on your nerves. “You remind me of someone I know.” You cough, “I knew.” 

“Who you really didn’t like I assume?” 

“I wish.” You sigh, running a hand through your hair, the first time you’ve been able to do so in a long time with the high buns that you wear in the senate. It’s oddly freeing and for some reason convinces you to keep talking, “There was a guy who I knew back home, he was my best friend, he wanted to travel the galaxy or at least leave home once. He was just like you, egotistical, reckless-” 

“Hey-”

“also funny, smart underneath all that thrill sneaking and an amazing person, which are all traits I have yet to see from you-” You eyed him suspiciously. “He was-” You trail off, “We were friends for a long time, but then we got older.” You want to avoid it, like saying it would bring back all the feelings from when it had first happened. “When we turned eighteen he joined the first order.” 

Poe’s face falls, “(Y/N)-” 

You wave him off, “He’s still alive, and he still works for them, as an agent gathering information about whatever they want him to.” Poe doesn’t respond, only nods. “I always knew the first order was bad news, but he wanted to get off planet which his parents wouldn’t let him do he wanted anyway to get out from under their thumb.” You shrug and reflexicly crossing your arms over your chest to protect yourself. “Good?” 

“Yeah, yeah.” He says, you can feel the pity in his voice. 

“Good.” You breathe, feeling a little bit better. “Now as for finding a way out of this-“ You say looking around for anything that you can use or anything that could spark an idea for a plan to get out. “That is step one. And step two is-” You pace the length of the closet slowly trying to think of something else. “Step two is getting captured.” 

“What? I thought that’s what we were trying to avoid.” 

“I have an idea but you have to trust me. We’re going to get captured but then there going to let us go.” You tell him, a serious look in your eye. “Do you trust me?”

It takes him a minute but he settles on agreement, “I do.” 

You nod quickly and walk towards the door, it opens when you got close enough. The two of you walk outside and the hallway is suspiciously devoid of stormtroopers. It seems like you were going to have to go and find them yourselves. “Give me your blaster.” You instruct him and he hands it over again after what feels like forever of deliberation. You shoot one blast in the wall to your left, one to your right, and three directly ahead of you. Poe doesn’t say a word but you know he’s making that confused face again, only this time the thought of it doesn’t instantaneously annoyed. 

Twenty stormtroopers come rushing down the hall with blasters raised at the two of you. You raise your arms in surrender, trying to hide a small smile and you look to Poe to do the same, you mouth ‘don’t do anything crazy’ for good measure. He rolls his eyes but copies you and raises his arms, the look on his face betraying everything he felt about it. The two of you were carted off to the office a first order officer who you assume is the director of the outpost. The two of you stand, handcuffed in front of his desk as he half glares at you and half reads a folder full of papers. 

“A Republic pilot and a Senate Aide,” He observes, looking up at the two of you briefly and then turning his attention back to his papers. “How curious that the two of you ended up on first order property.” 

“We didn’t want to be here.” Poe says, sarcasm dripping through his words. “We were here for a meeting with a business partner of yours, and somehow we ended up here, care to tell us how that happened?” 

“You were found walking around private property Commander Dameron, the first order doesn’t like it when we find spies trying to look in on our operations.” 

“We’re not spies!” Poe half shouted. You elbowed him in the arm, hard and mouthed ‘calm down’. He audibly sighed and added a curt, “Sir.” 

The directors attention turned to you. “And you haven’t said anything. Don’t you want to defend yourself?” 

“Me? No.” You shake your head, a fake smile plastered on your face. “I’m just reveling in how stupid all of this is.”

“Excuse me?” 

“You do realize that keeping us here, putting us in cuffs even is an act of aggression? Let me answer that, clearly you don’t or you wouldn’t be doing it. Your army, if you can even call it that is small I’m guessing from the low amount of security you keep around here, and if there are more there probably hidden in the outer regions. If you did want war with the republic, which you shouldn’t by the way, your army is too far out and your not ready to mobilize. Keeping us here is telling the republic that you want them to attack now when you're nowhere near ready to defend much less mount a counter attack.” 

He sits back in his chair, he tries not to make any facial expressions but the way he clasps his hands together tells you everything you need to know. You lean a little cut forward, “Let me know when it really sinks in for you.” You take a step back, and sit down in the chair behind you, content that you would be released in the next few minutes. Your eyes say checkmate but you don’t want him to think your too cocky, that would disrupt the act. 

Poe looks at you with wide eyes and you smile with an I told you so, in return. 

The director seems to get the message and buries his head in his hands, grumbling something about how his bosses were going to kill him before motioning to the troopers to release your cuffs. “They will escort you back to your ship.” He explains, “But I don’t want to see you back here again.” 

“Don’t tell us what to do.” You say, flexing your wrists as you were released from the cuffs. You don’t even look back as you followed the troopers out of the room. 

Poe doesn’t move from in front of the directors desk for a moment and you get a little nervous thinking that he’s going to do something to jeopardize your release, “What she said.” 

The troopers do as they are told and lead you back on the transport that had brought you to the first order outpost and take you all the way back to the ship you had come in. When the troopers are gone and you’re safely off planet you turned to Poe ready to spill the thoughts that had been flying around your head since you’d left the director's office. “That was weird, but also kind of amazing, but also bad?” 

“I agree with all of that. You were amazing.” 

“Well I figured that the political way out might be the best option considering your shoot first and ask questions later approach failing so miserably.” You tease, a sudden weight off your chest. 

“I try to give you a compliment and you still have to lecture me?”

“If I don’t do it, who will?” 

You talk to him for the entire ride back to Hosnian, the silence of the first ride forgotten completely. The two of you fall into a rhythm, even though what you both do is different and how you do your jobs is for sure you find an understanding and even some similarities. When you made it back to Senator Organa's office, she was eager to hear the information you had gathered on the outpost. 

“The first order is definitely hiding something, ma’am.” You say as you sit on one of the plush chairs in her office. “We weren’t even able to speak to the CEO before we were taken onto one of their bases against our will.” 

“There are troops at the outpost but not a lot,” Poe continues “We have reason to believe there keeping more in the outer reaches out of sight until they decide to use them. There are weapons in transfer though and the infrastructure is definitely there. They’re planning an attack.” 

“We scared them,” You tell her, trying to tone down Poe’s declaration of war, “Threatened that doing anything to us would be considered an act of aggression and would warrant a response and he backed down pretty quickly. They’re planning something but it’s nowhere near ready. For now they’re scared of us still.”


	2. wouldn't you like to know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you've been waiting for him, he finds out

You found yourself waiting up for Poe Dameron. Waiting up in the most pathetic way possible, because of the lengths that he was gone. In between patrol assignments, to mostly outer rim sometimes mid, which would be for three weeks minimum, you stayed on Hosnian Prime waiting for him to come back. In the most pathetic way possible, because the two of you didn’t even have plans but you still made it a point to find him, and the two of you would have a drink or talk or something and then he would leave again and you would be left waiting. 

But it didn’t matter, because you weren’t together. So you shouldn’t expect him to even think about you and honestly you were hopeful that he didn’t notice how often you wanted his attention. 

“Your thinking about something.” He says, one night after he comes back. The two of you are walking the streets after getting drinks, but your mind is thinking about something else. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” You shake yourself back into the present, “But you were saying? About how dull your sector is and about how your just dying to provoke some kind of conflict?” You tease. 

“Clearly you weren’t listening to me, but that’s nothing new.” He teases right back, pulling your arm to remind you to turn down the next corner. “Your always thinking about something else, which is weird because your the one who always wants to hang out with me.” 

“You noticed that.”

“You always seem to know when I’m in town.” 

“Yeah well it’s kind of my job.”

“So you do troop deployments now? That’s a big step up from an aide-”

“Okay, okay you got me maybe I was looking out for you specifically. But only because my job has been kind of boring me these days and you represent an adventure-” You say quickly, wondering if he believed you and how much you believed yourself. 

“Oh really?” He says, and the sound of his voice tells you all you need to know about if he thought that you excuse was true: he did not. “I find it hard to believe that you could ever become bored with your job, it’s perfect for you besides being an actual senator of course.” 

“Not quite seeing where this is going besides you slipping in a compliment for me-” You say, trying to change the subject so that he can’t figure out what you’ve been doing the whole time. 

“I think that you’re waiting for me. And you have been for weeks now.” He narrows his eyes like he’s figured out some big secret, which from your end he has but if anyone else had looked at the situation it wouldn’t have taken them long to figure out what was going on. “Everytime I make it back here you are.”

You sink into your seat, trying to think of something that you could say. “And so what if I am?” You try. 

“Why?” He asks. 

“Because you are interesting to me. I love it here, I love my job, but it can get a little mundane.” You shrug, taking a sip of your drink to avoid his eyes. 

“Your telling me that watching the gears of our government turn bores you? Well if you can’t find interest in it every single second I don’t know if anyone can.” He teases, flashing you a smile that could outshine both suns of Tatooine. “Seriously though I don’t know how to break it to you number two, but what I do is not interesting at all.” 

“Are you questioning my motives?” 

“I’m just saying, I think you like me.” 

“What?”

“I think you have feelings for me.”

“Yeah-” You cough, “Feelings of annoyance.” 

“Beyond that.” He says, looking at you in a way you are not familiar with. “That’s why you wait for me, and you see what I’m doing because you have feelings for me.” 

“And what if I do?”

“You do. And I do too.” 

You smile, “Okay, Commander. Then what are you going to do about it?” 

“Let’s get out of here and you’ll find out.”


	3. morning after

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the two of you are together one night and he stays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> school is officially cancelled for me cause coronavirus and I literally cant go anywhere so more chapters are probably gonna come soon

Sunlight filters in through the window above your bed and you roll your eyes retreating back under the covers. You're mad at yourself for not remembering to shut the curtains the night before, but then you remember exactly why you forgot and you forgive yourself just a little. When the blanket does nothing to keep the light out of your eyes, you sit up and sigh, pulling yourself out of bed. Without even thinking of the other person in the room you head out to the kitchen and make yourself a cup of caf, which you drink while sitting on the counter. 

Poe Dameron comes out a few minutes later, and your half-asleep mind forgets that he’d been in your room. You spill the caf all over your shirt and yelp, getting down off the counter and saying, “I thought you left.”

He rushes over to help you clean it up, as the hot drink spreads across your torso. It burns just a little but you try not to think about it too much. “What made you think that?”

“I’m used to the other person being a bit clingy-er.” You respond, making more caf to replace the one that you spilled, you walk into the bedroom to grab another shirt and walk into the bathroom to change into the new one. He comes up behind you, and you can see his reflection in the mirror but you continue and just raise your eyebrow at him. He stands with his arms crossed and you almost laugh, wondering why he left the kitchen at all. When you're done, you turn and wait for him to say something. 

“I’m so easy for you to forget then huh.” He says, and you roll your eyes in response. 

“Not every girl likes a guy hugging them while they are trying to sleep, gets rid of the conundrum of how am I supposed to get out of your arms without waking you up.” You smile, passing him to head back to the kitchen, “It’s a compliment, Dameron take it or leave it.” 

“Woah, Woah. I’m taking it.” He says, arms raised in surrender. “Just making sure that you were satisfied.” 

“Gross, I didn’t hire you.” You wrinkle your nose and take a sip of the drink. You pour him one and hold it in your outstretched arm, knowing that he’ll take it. He does and you continue, “Don’t you have to get back to your sector?”

“If you had been listening to me at all last night you would’ve heard that I have leave for the next couple of days so I will be here.” He pauses, “With you?” He says the last part as a question, and you try not to answer as quickly as you had the night before. He doesn’t need to know how much you want him to stay. 

“If you want.” You shrug. 

“Well with an invitation like that-”

“You kind of invited yourself.” You tease, but he looks hurt. “Just kidding, I want you here if you want to be.” You walk over and press a kiss to his lips, he leans in but when he does you pull away playfully leaving him off balance. “But I do have to go to work.” You smile and he narrows his eyes a little bit annoyed but not enough that it’s genuine. 

“How much time do we have?” He asks, and you know what he means. 

“Not enough.” You reply, “I kind of overslept, but when I get back-” You trail off, “As long as you're not asleep old man, we can do whatever you want.” 

“Why does everything good you say have to come with some kind of insult?” 

“Teasing is like fifty percent of this, if I can’t make fun of you I don’t think I’ll be as attracted to you.” You joke. 

“Well then forget I said anything but you did just say that you were attracted to me-“ He raises an eyebrow. 

“Don’t push it.” You say as you slip off into the bedroom to get dressed for work. “And I’ve already forgotten everything you said.” You come back into the kitchen, dressed in an ornate dress, though relatively casual by senate standards. It had a black top with short sleeves made of velvet, and the bottom is a bright blue, crossed with blue lines of fabric and glitter. He smiles when he sees you again, and even though you're pretty much past the crush stage seeing him look at you like that makes your heartbeat just a little faster.

You sit on the counter again, completely disregarding every actual chair in your apartment. He stands in front of you, “Are you sure you can’t stay?” His face shows one clear emotion and you know he’s going to beg, and it’s going to take a lot to not give in. “Just play hooky for one day.” He pulls both of your hands into his. 

“I have to work.” You say again, laughing a little. “Seriously, I have plans and those plans involve not neglecting my job especially for a guy.” 

“I’m just a guy now huh? That’s what this is?” He’s joking when he says it but it makes both of you pause. What are you two? The question runs through your mind, but as soon as it does you banish it and you don’t say anything. The two of you look like deer caught in headlights for a couple of seconds, trying to let it pass before anyone has to say anything. It was one night, and yeah it’ll happen again tonight but there’s no reason to put labels on anything just yet. 

“I’ve gotta go-” You say suddenly, half to get out of the conversation half because it’s true. “I’ll see you later.” And you're out the door before he gets a chance to respond.


	4. you infuriate me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leia sends the two of you on a mission to Naboo to gain more information on the First Order, while your there things heat up a little before descending into complete chaos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Take this very long update as my apology for a lack of updates, this chapter is one that I am proud of in length but not so sure about in content, so let me know what you think in the comments please! Like a lot of people in the world rn I'm under a quarantine order from my government so I'll be at home for a while so there will be more updates in the next month so stay tuned!

You're sifting through data archives from the day when Senator Organa walks out of her private office and beckons for you to follow as she makes her way out into the hallway. You’re curious about where she’s going and why she needs you to come with her but you follow. “Commander Dameron is in town,” She states and looks to you for a response, you too caught up in thinking about something else to notice this for a moment and she raises an eyebrow, “Unless you're already aware?” 

That shakes you back into the present and you're quick to think of a response, “No.” Your cheeks flush, which you hope she can’t see, “I did not know that. Good for him.” 

“Uh-huh.” She says you can tell she doesn’t believe you but you hope she doesn’t press it any further. Luckily she doesn’t, “Since the two of you got along so well last time-” She looks at you intently, and you hold your breath, she knows. “There’s a meeting of some individuals I believe to be high ranking in the first order on Naboo.”

“And you want us to go and look into it?” It clicks in your mind, that the reason for the walk isn’t to get some fresh air, “Off the radar of the Senate.” 

She nods, “You know as well as I do if the other Senators get wind of this then it’ll ignite another debate, not to mention the rumors.” 

“Of course, I’ll take care of it.” 

A few hours later you’re making out with Poe in the back of the transport to Naboo. You probably shouldn’t have been in such a public place, but for the first time that made you want to do it more. When you land, the two of you stop and shuffle off the ship and into the spaceport. You’re implicitly taken by the city, the glittering buildings, rising over the trees but not much more, the sky was a brilliant shade of the blue and there was an air of calm despite the hundreds of people shuffling about. It reminded you of home, in a rose-colored glasses way. “We’re supposed to be posing as a couple?” Poe says. 

“Yeah.” You reply, “Which should be extremely difficult considering I cannot stand you.” You tease him with a smile. He looks hurt for a moment but you know he’s only joking, “Kidding.” You say, “But yes, we’re a couple who’s looking to invest our wealth in the first order for a sizable return, which should be enough to get us into the meeting or at least close to it.”

“You memorized that fast, when did you find the time-?” 

“It took you a suspiciously long time to get to the complex from my apartment, despite the fact that I chose it for optimal travel time.” You stop walking and narrow your eyes at him. 

“Well, we made a bit of a mess and I might have been trying to clean it up. That and I couldn’t find my shirt after you had it.” 

Your eyes widen, “We made a mess? I didn’t even notice- You didn’t break anything did you?”

“Me?” He cocks his head to the side, “You were the one who was moving everywhere.”

“I had a lot of energy because I was drunk!”

“But the answer is no, nothing was broken but a few books fell off the shelf, so I put them back and made the bed.”

“The books had a filing system-” You tell him, “A very specific one, note to self to go back and fix that.” 

“What if I told you I figured out the system?”

“I wouldn’t believe you, there wasn’t enough time. But that does explain what took you so long, you realized that there was a filing system and stood there trying to figure out what it was, then gave up and ran for your life.” 

“I-” He stutters, trying to think of another explanation. 

“I’m right? Yeah thought so.” You start walking again, “You recognized that there was one that’s something. Some people think that I just put them up there in any old order.” 

“But you would never do that.” He appears next to you again.

You smile, “No way gives me chills just thinking about it. Honestly, the knowledge that a couple of the books are out of order is making me want to go back and fix it.” 

He grabs your hand and squeezes, “I think you’ll be okay. You have this to obsess over now. And me if you get really bored.” 

\--------------------->

A couple of hours later the two of you have successfully gotten an invite to an “exclusive” dinner which you think will involve some high ranking players in the first order, and if not then you’ll use whatever it is that you can get. This was mostly thanks to you, because the minute Poe got in front of your contact he lost the ability to speak clearly and coherently, something you made a not to never stop teasing him over. 

You stand in the bathroom of the home the two of you were staying in, putting on the finishing touches to your outfit. You’d chosen a more subdued color than you were used to, a black with a couple of bright colored finishes on the top and bottom, which you hope won’t stand out too much. You want to be able to move through and get information without people recognizing you or remembering you very much. You look in the mirror as you put in your earrings, just as Poe walks up behind you and smiles. “How many dresses did you bring?” He asks, half joking. 

You roll your eyes in response, he’s become a little obsessed with the amount of dresses you own ever since he’d gone through your closet one day when you were at work, and say “Less than ten.” 

He raises an eyebrow, and walks out of your line of sight for a moment. “Why do you need more than one?” He asks. 

“Well I’m not going to wear the same one again-that would make me look like I have no idea what I’m doing.” You shout back so he can hear, turning your attention again to the earring. You almost get it into your ear but you poke it the wrong way and almost drop it in surprise making a painful noise as well. 

Poe pops his head back into the bathroom, “You okay?” 

“What?” You ask, letting it sink in, “Yeah just trying to get this thing in.” 

He comes up behind you and pulls it out of your hand, “I got it.” 

You reach for it, “You have no idea how to put an earring in.” 

“I’m sure I can figure it out.” He tells you, holding it out of your grasp, “If I can understand the wiring of an X-Wing, I’m sure I can figure out how to get this thing in your ear.”

“Don’t make it sound so violent-” You say, “Fine, try. But if you poke my ear the wrong way I will elbow you in the stomach on reflex.” 

“Okay.” He says in return, and you turn to him. With more gentleness then you expected, he takes a hold of your ear and slides the earring in, he smiles softly and you almost melt. Then it turns into a smirk and you can tell he is very proud of himself, “Done.” He goes to pull his hand away, but you grab it before he can let go. 

“You forgot the clasp.” You take a hold of the earring and slide on the clasp, then look over his work. “Good job, you didn’t even draw blood.” 

“You think so less of me?” 

“You're the guy who asked me how many dresses I brought with me.” 

“I don’t think I will ever understand all of this.”   
“Give it time.” You smile at him. 

He wraps his arms around your waist and rests your head on your shoulder. “All I know is you're beautiful, all the time. Big dress or no big dress.” 

“Flatterer,” You tease. “Okay, okay move your hands you're gonna wrinkle the dress.” You turn to look at him and sigh a little, “This-” You gesture to his whole body, “Needs work before we are going anywhere.”

“I thought it was fine.”

“It’s not.” 

\------------------>

Poe is a lot better when you get to the dinner. Unlike when you tried to secure the invitation, he glided around the room with you effortlessly keeping your cover while building up smalltalk that could eventually lead you to the information that you wanted. You let him do the talking early on, because a quick scope of the room told you that it was mostly men, so you figured that Poe would do better talking to them and getting them to open up then you would. You plastered on the diplomatic smile that you had spent years cultivating and didn’t say more than a few words when spoken to. You fell into playing the part of the beautiful wife, which wasn’t one that you had ever wanted to play, but you told yourself that it would only be for one night. 

“Where are you from?” One of the guests asked you, during one of the times that you were milling about the large event space. It was a woman, and she was taller than you (which wasn’t a big identifier because most people were), her hair was long and brown but tied up in a tight bun at the back of her head and her eyes were green. She spoke as if each word was carefully chosen which made you suspicious of her. 

The two of you were off to the side of the room, and your brain misfired for a moment as you realized that you hadn’t quite thought out that part of your cover. Due to the accent that you had never quite been able to get rid of from childhood, you suspected that people would know you were from the Core but this question demanded a more specific answer than that. “Coruscant.” You lied, thinking that she would appreciate it being the former capital of the empire. 

You were right, and a smile showed up across her face, it wasn’t genuine, more conciliatory than anything but you took it. “Oh lovely. I suspected the core of course, but that explains why you would come all of this way.” 

You spoke in a more hushed tone, “My parents were always loyal to the emperor, but they had to keep quiet when the abhorrent New Republic came into power. They would be happy to know that the first order is here to restore well needed structure to the galaxy, so I thought I would get involved in this as a way of sorts to honor their memory.” You stop and wait for that to sink in, “And of course it would be nice to have a hand in running this galaxy the right way.” That part wasn’t a lie, and you hope that the little bit of added truth made the whole thing more believable. 

“A noble cause.” She replies, “I think you’ll fit in here just fine.” She looks around the room for a moment, “Your husband seems to be charming the room.” Her eyes look to Poe, who is talking to a group of men, and does seem to be charming them, which makes a small smile pull at the edge of your lips.

The word husband sends a chill down your spine, and throws you off balance momentarily. Luckily the woman looks at Poe long enough for you to focus on your cover again, but the shakiness of referring to him as your husband doesn’t leave your mind quite yet. “Oh yes, this is definitely his area, more so than mine.” 

“My husband is the same as you, much more strategic.” There’s a slight edge to her voice, one that makes you think that she and her husband might not have a perfect relationship. “He can be very focused on his work, or other things that distract him.” It clicked for you right there, her husband must have cheated on her and from the venom in her voice when she’d said it, the person was either very close to her or parts of the affair had become semi public knowledge, which was embarrassing for her clearly. 

“Well I can’t say I’ve had that problem.” You tell her, “But I’ve found that a little tough love can go a long way towards solving issues in regards to distractions.” 

“I will keep that in mind.”

You look around for Poe when she begins talking again, and when you don’t see him you take the opportunity to excuse yourself from the conversation. “It’s been very nice speaking to you-”

“Maratelle Hux.” She says.

“-Maratelle.”

“You too.” She nods, and you head off to find Poe. 

You don’t see him anywhere inside the room, so you head outside, holding the small train of your dress up with your hands to keep it from dragging on the ground. You walk around the corner and find him in the middle of a physical fight with one of the men from the party. You take in a deep breath before intervening, and while you do he sees you as the man takes another swing, that Poe only half ducks. “What are you doing here?” He calls, clearly on instinct because he looks like he regrets it right after he says it. 

You don't answer and instead pull up your dress to reveal the blaster attached to a holster on your thigh. It takes you only a second to get it out and you shoot at the ground near where the two of them are practically wrestling by this point. The blast sends both of them flying to the opposite side and inadvertently gives the other man the upper hand, he tackles Poe to the ground and leers over him, “New Republic Scum.” 

Before he can say anything else, you're behind him with the blaster pressed against his neck, “I wouldn’t move if I were you.” He raises hands as Poe stands up with a smirk, “Is that enough help for you?” You ask Poe. 

“Yeah, I’d say so.” 

“Great, so now you have to figure out what we’re going to do with this guy.” And his face falls. 

So the two of you tie him up and hide him in a very nicely placed barn about a kilometer away from the site of the dinner. You're incredibly angry with Poe for somehow managing to do the one thing that you hadn't planned for, and jeopardize the entire operation. As angry as you are at him, that feeling is being overtaken by the anxiety you have that the mission might fail and that you’ve gotten yourselves into a situation where you might not make it off planet. You pace the ground in front of the barn anxiously, still holding the train of your dress, and Poe just watches you. “Tell me why you had to fight someone.” You ask. 

“Where did you get that blaster from?” He returns. 

“I have one, for personal use.” 

“Where was it?” 

“Thigh Holster.” You tell him, “But that’s not important.” 

“You're a really good shot.” He says, “How did you learn that?” 

“You're changing the subject!” You shout, “And my father taught me, now can we focus on what we're going to do that won’t get us executed and or charged with espionage?”

“Okay okay.” Then he starts pacing too, and the two of you pace in the middle of the field. 

“What if we question him, then make sure that he doesn’t tell anyone at the dinner?” He suggests. 

“That would be great, if he had any leverage which we don’t. We’re the ones who crashed the party, even if you didn’t start the fight he’ll say you did and he tied him up and put him in that barn for what will surely be a number of hours.”   
“New plan then,” He says, “We question him, leave him in the barn and then get the heck offplanet before they can find where he is.” 

“That’s risky.” You say, running the scenarios in your head. “I mean the back half is basically our only option at this point but depending on if they’ve realized that he’s gone or not and if they realized that we are also gone we might not have that long and we might get caught red handed, then espionage charges then probable execution.” 

“Thank you for always being so optimistic.” 

“Someone here has to be a realist, otherwise we’d always be diving headfirst into incredibly dangerous decisons and making dumb choices that will probably get us killed.” You gestured to the barn, “Example A.” 

“Let’s table this and go talk to the guy at least, I think we have time.” He tries, “And if we don’t then you can shoot our way out.” 

You fake a smile and roll your eyes before walking towards the barn. You open the door, Poe close at your heels and the man looks at you both in disgust. He’s tied to one of the hooks meant for equipment, able to move his legs but not his arms very much. He’s no one extremely important to the First Order because you don’t recognize him from any of the files you’d read, but it was sometimes the lower level members that gave the most useful information. 

“Tell us everything you know about the first order.” 

He narrows his eyes, “I’ll never tell you anything.” He pauses, probably for dramatic effect, “I would rather-”

“Die? Yeah heard that one before.” Poe says. 

“Don’t you want to be on the right side of this one?” You ask him, “We all know that as soon as the New Republic gets wind on your organization they’ll send forces to the outer rim and crush you like a bug, are you sure you want to get caught with your pants down when thousands of troops come knocking on your door?” 

He doesn’t flinch, and you sweat a little. “We all know-” He mocks, “That the New Republic will destroy itself before it comes to a unanimous agreement on anything, much less a full scale invasion, and we are not small. We are more than capable of defending ourselves against any invasion, if it comes to that but of course our friends in the senate would never let that happen. Soon enough the entire galaxy will bow down to the first order, and I’m going to come for the two of you first.” 

“Nice to have something to look forward to then.” Poe says.   
“Are we done here?” You turn to Poe with an annoyed look, then you turn back to the man. “I think we’re done here.” 

“We should probably get going yeah.” He says, and the two of you walk calmly out of the barn as the man shouts at you at the top of his lungs. 

When you make it outside, you start to tell him I told you so but the sound of a hovercraft whirring breaks through the silence of the field. The two of you look at eachother and immediately start running, at first you overtake Poe but as you go further you start to fall a little bit behind. “I-told-you-we-didn’t-have-enough-time.” You say in between breaths. 

“Why are we talking about this now?” He asks and you don’t say anything else. You almost trip and he sees, slowing down a little to make sure he’s running at the same pace as you. “Do you want me to carry you?” He asks, gesturing to the fact that you're still holding the bottom of your dress in your hands. 

“I can run for my life by myself thank you very much.” You say, running faster for emphasis. 

After what feels like forever, you reach the house again and grab everything you can before heading back to the port. It’s a little hard to get a transport seeing as it’s the middle of the night and there’s not really a good reason to need to flee so quickly but you do, and when you're finally out of the atmosphere you let out a breath. 

You’re not ready to speak to Poe just yet, now that the anxiety has subsided you’re just angry at him for getting you into a situation where you had to run through a field in heels and a dress, and almost got you killed. You wonder for a while about how you came to the conclusion that it was any kind of good idea to get into whatever this was with him seeing as the two of you had such differing opinions when it came to most things, including how to keep yourselves alive. He was just so-

“You think I’m impulsive, and reckless.” He says, like he can read your mind. 

You don’t say anything for a while. 

“Yeah I do.” 

“Strange that it’s taken you this long to figure that out.” He says, “People usually say that immediately upon meeting me.” 

“Well I guess it hasn’t come up until now.” You say. 

“Well if we’re being honest then, I think that you overthink everything.” He continues, “The gut decision, the first one that pops into your head is usually the right one, no need to go through and think over a million possibilities and secarions because sometimes that’s the difference between making it out or not.” 

“Well sometimes just diving in, making the gut decision gets you killed even faster. You don’t have to think over every single option, but thinking about more than one would be nice.” You shoot back. You look him in the eyes, “You infuriate me.” 

He knows it’s as close as he’s going to get to an apology or an acknowledgement that the two of you were fundamentally different in the ways that you handled things, so he accepts it. “I’m growing on you, admit it.” 

You smile, “Yeah maybe a little.” You pause, “Look I’ll try not to overthink things so much, if you’ll try to think about your options at least once.” 

“Deal.” He pulls you close, then thinks about something. “We’re going to have to go back and explain to the senator that we got limited information and almost got killed.” 

“Did you have to mention that?” You asked, pulling away, “We just made up, things were going great for one second and now we’re going to have to think of some way to explain this so that it doesn’t sound like we completely screwed this up.” 

“This looks like it will be the end of our spying together,” He says.

“Somehow I don’t think it will be, something tells me she’ll ask us to do her a favor again.” 

It takes him a minute to realize what you're saying, “You don’t think?” 

“No I don’t think.” You say, “I know. She has to know, otherwise us being here in the first place makes little to know sense. If we’re running the numbers-” He gives you a look and you try to correct yourself, “Which I’m not doing, just hypothetically, then it's a pretty high probability.” 

“So you know she knows but you're not going to acknowledge it?” 

“Yes, exactly. Because acknowledging it means that I open myself up to the criticism that comes with all of this, so we’re just all in mutual knowledge here but there’s no need to say it outloud.” 

He plants a kiss on your forehead, “You're the boss.”


	5. just drinks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you have a pathological need to be liked and an inability to small talk out side of work, the two collide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the name of this chapter should actually be shameless character development cause that's what it is. a lot shorter and a little less fun than the last chapter but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Kare Kun does not like you and it’s honestly the first time you’ve ever faced this problem. You’re used to being liked, always the teacher's favorite, one of those people who just connect with others when you meet them. The feeling is almost never reciprocated, on your end but it’s still there. Now it seems the problem seems to be you; you like her, at least you're pretty sure you do, but beyond that you need her to like you. Unfortunately, she’s giving you a look from across the table that does not look like anything you’ve ever seen before so you take it as abject dislike. 

Poe is smiling, talking to the other members of Rapier squadron about something you're only half listening to, just in case he says your name or wants you to chime in on some argument he doesn’t think he can win. His arm is wrapped around your shoulders and you know that it’s a thing that people do in relationships but it makes you nervous, considering he only introduced you as his friend. You didn’t discuss what or who he was going to introduce you as before you’d gone in, seeing as the whole thing was a lot more last minute then you’d wanted it to be, so you thought that there was a possibility that at the end of the night he would introduce you as his girlfriend. It was a possibility that you didn’t know how to feel about, you liked being with him but the label was a lot, definitely a lot for drinks with his friends. Of course, adding on the possibility of confrontation due to someone not liking you wasn’t helping with the general air of anxiety that you were feeling. Luckily you were very good at hiding it. 

You wish that you didn’t have to be there at all. The only reason why you were there was that Kare had caught you in the first place which thinking back might be the reason that she doesn’t like you. You start spiraling when that thought comes to mind, thinking about how maybe it was a jealous thing or one of those things where the boyfriend’s mom doesn’t like the girlfriend because no girl will ever be good enough for her son. Only in this case, the mom is replaced by a very close female best friend and it kind of makes the dislike more intense. 

You are just thankful that none of them can see you spiraling. You know that your thinking is probably not true but you can’t help but explore every possibility. You’re a tactical thinker, it’s what you do, it’s a part of your job so it's something you can’t exactly leave at the door when you get into personal interactions. 

When you’re almost done spiraling, you break free of Poe’s grasp and excuse yourself to the bathroom. You're standing at the sink when Kare walks in, something you curse yourself for not predicting. She stands next to her crossed arms and you can’t think of anything diplomatic to say so you just come out with, “You’re killing me.” You say, trying to keep the whine out of your voice.

“Really?” She says, the hint of a smile on her face. “I thought you could handle pressure.” 

“I can.” You straighten your stance subconsciously, “For my job, not as good at personal pressure. If you could just tell me why you don’t like me so I can fix it, I will fix it and then I can stop sneaking off to the bathroom when I clearly don’t need to be here.” 

She narrows her eyes and you think that maybe this is the time where you finally dissolve into a puddle when faced with a social conflict. She looks you over but you barely notice because you're chiding yourself for getting so worked up over this, people are going to not like you in your life and it’s something that you need to learn to deal with if you want to make it anywhere in politics or in life. “Actually,” You say before she can even open her mouth, “It doesn’t matter. Like me, or don’t, I understand that I am a bit of an acquired taste. But I’m not going anywhere, so if you don’t like me you're going to have to learn how to deal with me.” 

Her expression goes from unreadable to a smile suddenly and it catches you a little off guard. “I hadn’t decided if I liked you or not until now.” She says. 

“And you’ve decided?” You ask her. 

“I like you just fine.” She says, and you breathe a quiet sigh of relief, not that you cared of course but it was nice to know anyway. “I was just trying to figure you out. Not everyday that Dameron shows up dating some senate aide.” You almost respond, “And before you say anything about not being in a relationship, you are so don’t even try to deny it.” 

“So I have your approval then?” You say, half joking. 

“Are you saying that you need it?” 

“Nope.” And with that, you walk out of the room and back over to the table. You sit down next to Poe again, and pull him in for a long kiss in front of the rest of the group, suddenly not caring if you had to explain yourselves later. Poe looks at you with his head cocked to the side for a moment, clearly surprised. “You were saying?”


	6. thinking too much

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> its late one night at your apartment, and Poe’s decided to get existential.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isn’t really an official chapter or anything, I didn’t plan it but I wanted to put something out here because I haven’t updated in a while. I’ve been thinking about these guys a lot lately, so there’s some stuff coming on the horizon :)

“Do you ever think about what’s next?” He says, one night at your apartment. He’s back from his patrol near the unknown regions, and he seems restless for some reason you can’t quite place. 

“What do you mean?” You reply, “In terms of life, career, people, living arrangements, this relationship?” 

He smiles and laughs a little. “In terms of life. Like what are you going to do in the future? Where are you going to be?” 

“I’ll be wherever the republic is, since they insist on changing the capital every few years. I’ll be a Senator, and I will vote on bills, and make speeches and wear ornate dresses that would put even the delegation from Naboo to shame.” You smile thinking of it, looking out towards the horizon. The balcony of your partner stretches out from the building and the skyline of Hosnian glitters in the night. 

“You have it all planned out.” He’s wistful, you can hear it in his voice, and you wonder why. He sits down on ground and you can’t help but smile just a little. 

“Not hard to do when it’s what you’ve been taught to want,” You say with the sadness tinged in your voice. “If you don’t know, be happy that you can figure it out.” 

He frowns and wonders what you mean but he doesn’t push it. “You assume I’m asking you because I don’t know?” 

“You always ask me things you don’t know,” You tease him, finally taking a seat beside him. “But it’s eating at you, the uncertainty?” 

“I wouldn’t say eating at me, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about.” 

“That’s very sudden,” You say. “What happens to make rash decisions now think later.” 

“Maybe someone has got me thinking about settling down, or at the very least what happens next in my life.” 

“Huh.” You voice, not saying anything else because you don’t know what to say. You don’t want to him to push that any further because you know your not ready to talk about any kind of settling down. 

“My parents got married right after the war, and then they had me. I’ve just been thinking how fast they went how quick it was, and maybe they got caught up in the adrenaline of it all.” 

“Are you saying they made a mistake?” 

“No, I’m just thinking.” He pauses. “What about your parents?”

You stop in your tracks, unable to say anything, “Uh, what about them?” 

“How did they meet? Did they love each other?” 

“Doesn’t matter,” You grumble. You hope that he gets the hint and doesn’t try to press it anymore. He takes a hint and just nods. 

“I think this is the most you’ve ever thought about anything,” You half grumble. 

He elbows you in the side, “Be nice.” 

“I’m unbelievably nice to you. I am nicer to you than I am to most people.” 

“Are you? Because if this is you being unbelievably nice then I spare a thought for the poor souls who have to deal with you normally.” 

You laugh, “Oh yeah. Try the people who don’t vote the way they said they would, they get a stern talking to.” 

He presses a kiss to your lips, then another, then another, laughing almost giddily. “Huh? Maybe you could give me a stern talking to-“ You laugh out loud and he rolls over onto you. 

“Stop! Not on the ground!” You giggle which earns you a surprised look because he’s never heard you do it before. 

“Okay, okay, let’s move this party indoors.” 

“Whatever you say.” He stands, and picks you up bridal style before carrying you into the apartment. When he sets you down on the bed he stops, and he just looks at you for a while. The city light bathes his hair in a fluorescent glow and you swear his eyes sparkle. Before you can ask what he’s doing he says, “Whatever the future, I want you in it.”


	7. everything I couldn't say

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was not in my planned outline for this story but I was feeling like writing some soft stuff and this just came to me so thought I'd drop it in

Poe doesn’t have nightmares very often. Usually he sleeps almost scarily sound, and sometimes snores which annoys you when you're very tired, if you're in a bad mood you’ve been known to kick him out of the bed just so you can sleep. But sometimes, the bed shakes as he shoots up awake in the middle of the night, breathing heavily like someone is sucking all of the oxygen out of the room, and it feels like the world is crashing down around him. Sometimes, he thinks that you’re still asleep, and he tries to lay back down to go to sleep but you're always awake. Occasionally your reaction will be a little late, and when he rolls over, you shoot awake with a little bit of drool in the corner of your mouth but when he wakes up you wake up. 

He pretends that he’s fine for a while after you wake up. He’s embarrassed, like he’s this big strong navy guy who couldn’t possibly be stopped by some little nightmare but you want to tell him that it’s okay to be afraid of things, even if they aren't on the surface. And you would tell him, if you thought that he’d listen to you. 

You don’t lecture him for waking you up again, and you don’t lecture him for not wanting to talk about it, because you don’t like to talk about your feelings either. The only difference between the two of you is that he’s only embarrassed about the nightmares, you're embarrassed about everything that you feel. So it’s almost never that you tell him how you actually feel, how deep your feelings for him really go, past what’s on the surface and past how you pretend that the whole thing means so little to you. 

Except for one night, when he wakes you up. It’s one of the nights when you wake up right away, he shoots awake in the bed, and the whole thing shakes enough that you almost roll right off trying to get up. You fall onto your knees, then walk over to turn the light on. You go back and sit down on the bed, rubbing up and down his arm as he stares at the door. He looks like he’s seen a ghost, and you think that maybe he has. “You okay?” You ask gently, the sleepiness evident in your voice. 

He doesn’t say anything for a minute, then he lets out a breath and says, “I’m sorry I woke you up.” So he’s not okay, you note that. That’s something that always surprises you, he’ll lie to other people and tell them that he’s fine, but he won’t lie to you. It’s almost like he can’t like lying to you the way both of you do so easily to everyone else is some kind of betrayal. So he doesn’t tell you he’s not okay, he moves on, he apologizes, and acts like you won’t notice. Even though he knows you notice everything. 

“It’s fine,” You say but your body betrays you with a yawn. 

He looks at you, and the guilt is evident in his eyes, he squeezes your hand. “I’ll go-you should actually get to sleep-”

You stop him before he can leave, “Don’t leave, it’s okay.” He doesn’t leave, but he doesn’t say anything else. Without even thinking, you pull him into a hug, burying your head in his shoulder. His skin presses against your shirt, and you can feel the heat of his body under your chin. You wrap your arms around him, tightly hoping that it will do something to ease the hurt that he feels. “I can’t live without you,” The words tumble out of your mouth too fast to stop. You hear yourself say it, and you almost want to turn back time and take it back. Not because it’s not true, but because saying it out loud makes it real, makes you vulnerable to so many things. He wraps his arms back around you and suddenly that’s okay. “I keep people at a distance, even when I like them because I’m afraid of getting hurt, I’m afraid of opening myself up to everything.” You laugh at yourself a little, “You mean a lot to me okay? And for once in my life I’m going to admit that, outloud. If something happened to you, I would be more than sad, okay?” 

He holds you tighter, then laughs. “More than a little sad huh?” 

“Shut up, that was a big moment for me,” You smile into his shoulder and let yourself melt into his embrace.


	8. the one with the crash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven’t updated in forever because my brain got clogged with oc’s (very much thinking about a story with poe that takes place a few years before TFA but anyways) 
> 
> But things are heating up here the next few chapters are heating up and pretty much my favorite “era” in this series (there also pre written woot woot)

When it rains, it pours. You never quite understood that saying, especially since you grew up on a planet where it only ever really sprinkled (a fact that you are very disappointed with once you saw holos full of torrential downpours) but today you finally understand. Long days are going to get even longer, and mild annoyance will turn into full blown panic if given the chance. 

And you tempted fate today. 

It started off fine but the day seemed to draw out longer and longer as the paperwork piled up and what seemed like an endless stream of senators filed in and out of the office. 

You wanted to see me, Senator?” You say, keeping an edge to your voice so she can’t tell your worried about what she’s going to say. 

“It’s about Commander Dameron,” She says, and you don’t move. Your used to regulating your emotions, so you know how to block them all out. “I’ve just gotten word that he was in a crash, and I thought you would like to know.” 

You really don’t hear anything else she says because your spiraling a little bit, thinking about all the terrible things that could’ve happened. When she’s done talking, you realize it and nod to her before calmly walking out of the room. It doesn’t take you long to find out exactly where he is and you think maybe she knows that. 

You can’t think about anything but him for a long time. Taking the transport all the way to the building, creating a very conscientious excuse to get into the medical area and finally until you find him. 

When you finally get to him your mind is still racing, and you can’t quite calm it down. You just stand there, in the middle of the room, staring at him and trying to give your brain a second to stop imagining every worse case scenario you came up with on the way here. 

You told him you couldn’t live without him and he could’ve died. 

“What are you doing here?” He asks, breaking you out of your trance. 

You shake your head, “I heard about all of this.” 

“From who?” 

“Who do you think?” You say a little bit sharply. The anxiety has faded or so you think and now you're just a little angry. 

He looks at you like he doesn’t know what to make of any of this. He didn’t expect you to be here and you definitely didn’t expect to have to be here. It’s all a lot more public than the two of you are used to, the little bubble that you’ve spent the last few months cultivating has finally popped. As much as neither of you wants to have to talk about it, you have to decide what all of this means in the real world. 

“This looks-“ 

“I don’t care!” You shout, louder than you mean to. Uou know how this looks, you know exactly how this could look. You know every single thing someone could think about this and every way that this could ruin the future you’ve crafted in your mind. But the thing is that you don’t care. For once the anxiety isn’t about making the wrong move, or about someone seeing past your well curated facade. It’s about him. 

Your heart is your throat, you can’t catch your breath and you’ve never felt this way before. You’ve never panicked this much before. He looks at you with wide eyes, and you lower your voice, “I don’t care how it looks, I’ll figure it out.” You take another deep breath, “What happened?” 

“I crashed,” He looks at you with a worried expression that you would care more about if you weren’t so worried about him. 

“The full story,” You say, your voice commanding. “I thought you were the best pilot in the galaxy? How do you just crash?” 

“Well I was being chased and I had to take some evasive maneuvers. Which then led me to crash.”

“Chased by who?” 

“Wow I didn’t know this was an interview, I thought that you actually cared about me-“ He’s upset that you're upset. Tension fills the small room, and neither of you knows what to say. He never expected you to show how worried you are about him like this and now he’s mad at himself for making you that worried. He regrets saying it as soon as it comes out of his mouth because of course you care about him. 

“I do-“ You hug yourself, your nails threatening to dig into your skin. Finally, it feels like you can get a hold of yourself. The digging into your skin, does the trick to slow down your heartbeat and allow you to stop acting like a lunatic. “I’ll get the incident report later. Are you okay?” 

“I’m okay.” He’s gentler now about it. Seeing you relax makes him relax because he sees that he hasn’t broken you completely. 

“Good,” You keep telling yourself that he’s fine, and nothing else is going to happen today and that everyone is going to be okay. Outwardly you're not showing any kind of panic because you’ve trained yourself to do that exact thing. “I told you that I couldn’t live without you and a week later you decide to crash your ship-” 

“-you don’t really decide to crash, it just happens-” 

“I’ve known you long enough to know that nothing ‘just happens’ to Poe Dameron,” You cross your arms over your chest. 

“Fine, fine,” He says, “Maybe I could’ve done a few things a little better but I’m the one who’s injured here so I would appreciate it if you gave me a little sympathy.” 

You laugh, “I came all the way down in here heels, and then I basically had an anxiety attack in front of you. There is your sympathy.” 

He smiles, “You are ruthless.” 

You press a brief kiss to his lips, “You like that about me.” 

“I’m not going to leave you,” He says suddenly. It catches you off guard, so you don’t say anything. “You’re afraid that I’m going to leave you, but I’m not going to. I could never leave you, and I never want to. I’m here, I’m staying here.” He pauses, “Well not literally because I have a job and everything but you know what I mean.” 

You roll your eyes, “Only you would be able to ruin your own monologue.” 

“But you like that about me.” 

You tap your foot against the gourmet absentmindedly. You’re thinking about saying something, but your instinct is to just keep quiet and bury the thing inside of you forever. But something is telling you to just say it. “I’m not afraid of you leaving me, I could live with you leaving me,” You pause, “No offense.” You continue, “My mother died when I was eleven, and it was slow and it was painful to watch. Then she died, and I was numb, because I didn’t know what to feel because if I am being honest I hated my mother but I couldn’t exactly be happy she was dead.” You shake your head, trying not to ramble, “Which doesn’t have to do with you at all but I think what I’m trying to say is that. I don’t want you to die, because I know that would make me feel something, I think it might destroy me.” 

Poe squeezes your hand, “I will try my best not to put myself into any incredibly dangerous situations going forward. No promises, but I will be less-me.”


	9. jet black heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> poe tells you something he's been scared too, and maybe he was right to be afraid

It’s cloudy out. One of those days when it’s overcast but not raining, where you can feel that something is coming but you don’t know when. You move through the day normally, not expecting to find Poe Dameron standing awkwardly in your kitchen pacing the floor. You know something is up, because usually when he lets himself in he lies down somewhere until you get back. He also looks nervous which was not at all normal for him. 

“I have something to tell you,” He blurts when he sees you get into the door. You let it close behind you and feel the air leaving your lungs, staring at him for longer than you meant to but the whole situation is a lot to take in. 

“Yeah?” You cough.

“You're going to be mad, like very mad but I want you to try not to yell at me too much.” He makes his way out of the kitchen, more manic energy than usual radiating off of him, “Sit down for this, please.” 

If you weren’t nervous before, you definitely are now but you do what he says and sit down. On The kitchen counter, and not the chair because the anticipation is too much for you to think about anything else, including the correct place to sit. “So I’m sitting down now.” You say, “What’s the thing?” 

He looks like he doesn’t want to tell you at all. You realize that the sitting, and pacing the kitchen has all been an elaborate stalling plan, he knows the walk from the kitchen to the living room will take a minute because of maneuvering around the furniture and he knows you'll be caught off guard by him being there in the first pace, leading to the sitting on the desk and now it’s been five extra minutes that he doesn’t have to tell you. You’re fine with surprises, they happen in your line of work but it takes you a minute to adjust, clearly he’s noticed. 

He knows you way too well. And you can’t decide whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. Then you think that’ll depend on whatever it is he has to but doesn’t want to tell you. He asked you not to be mad, that’s got to be some kind of clue. Maybe he’s finally found someone else, maybe the perfect little bubble of being with him but also not being with him has popped and he’s tired of waiting for someone who seems to show no interest in committing with him (even though in reality you really, really want to but logically it doesn't make any sense) and now he’s going to tell you that it’s over. 

You shuffled against your desk, probably messing up the organized chaos you had going, which meant that you would have to clean the whole thing once this whatever it was was over. “Poe.” You say finally, and it comes out a lot more vulnerable than you mean it to. For all you know he thinks that he’s the one stalling this whole thing and isn’t even thinking about how much your overthinking waiting for him to just spit it out, because he doesn’t think like you do because sometimes he doesn’t think at all and your doing the thinking for both of you and then some because your always overthinking and-”You’ve kind of got me on the edge of my seat here.” That one comes out calmer than the first and you're grateful for it. 

“Oh yeah. I’m just gonna say it-” He pauses.

“Well-” You raise an eyebrow, and by now a part of you wondered if you even want him to say it because judging by the way he’s avoiding eye contact and not telling you it seems bad. “Poe-”

“I am taking a prolonged leave of absence.” He says, pausing and waiting for your reaction and then just decides to keep dropping bombs when the first one has just hit the intended target, “And I joined Senator Organa’s resistance.” 

Okay so it’s not as bad as you thought it would be, he’s not breaking up with you but you're still mad and you kind of, momentarily, explode. 

“You did what?!” You stand up, knocking a plate off the counter and onto the floor. It falls with a sickening crack, though the sound does not render you silent in fact it’s more of an omen for what comes next. “Are you crazy?” You start walking forward, and Poe with arms raised in the air moved back accordingly while looking scared but not surprised. “Don’t answer that, the answer is yes.” You stop walking and stand in one place, saving Poe from falling over the couch arm. “You just throw everything away that you had? A place in the republic navy? All that training, everything you worked for just for you to quit and join some group that isn’t resisting against much of anything because as we determined there is no threat. You just-” You decide that you can’t look at him and you just scream for a long time and when you're done your throat is scratchy and you seat yourself on the couch. 

The hot boiling anger is gone, exploded like lava from a volcano but there’s heat, there’s still anger, leftover bubbling beneath the surface. You cross your arms over your chest and you don’t move. You know that he wants your approval, but you’re in no place to give it even though it’s the right thing to do. You can’t bring yourself to do the right thing because you're mad because he quit you think, but then when you think about it more you realize it’s not about him quitting at all, it’s not about him not telling you until now, it’s not even about your disbelief in the resistance. 

He sits down next to you, but gives you space in case you decide to lash out again. “I want to say it was a spur of the moment thing, but it wasn’t. I really thought this through (Y/N), more than I have anything in a while, but I didn’t tell you because I knew that you wouldn't approve and I didn’t want you to be mad at me. But I realized that we’re together and I can’t be afraid of telling you things so I’m telling you now.” 

You don’t say anything in return. You're trying to think of what to say, something to form all of the anger swirling inside of you into one coherent sentence beyond screaming but you can’t. He waits, patiently. “You didn’t say anything to me. You went to all those meetings, you told me about that ship that sent out the distress call, that was for her wasn’t it? You know how blindsided I was when she resigned and you still decided to keep this from me? You came here day after day knowing that you were going to make a decision that affects both of us and you didn’t say anything.” 

“So you hate me then? Because I betrayed you?” 

A long pause. “I wish I could hate you.” You want to kiss him, to tell him that you're just terrified and that you don’t mean it. You don’t, the anger has taken over and is burying all of the feelings you have for him in a tiny box and tucking it behind your heart. He knows you have trust issues, he knows you wouldn’t be able to handle being lied to, even if it’s by omission. There are so many things that you could say. You could say that you're scared of him being hurt, that you don’t want him to leave because not seeing him for long spaces of time makes your heart pinch in ways that it hasn’t in a long time. You could say all of that because the hard truth is attached to him, physically, emotionally, in ways that you never thought possible and this is enough to send all of that toppling down. It shouldn’t be but it is, because you are too deep. 

“(Y/N)-”

You resolve to do something you never thought that you would have to.“You have places that you need to be, and I need to be here. I knew that this would happen, deep down. We’re trying to do different things, we have commitments to other people, to other places so I guess that means that our commitment to each other has to be put on the backburner.” 

“What are you saying?” He asks, standing up instinctively. 

You stand up to meet him, making sure that he doesn’t have the upper hand. “I’m saying that we shouldn’t be together anymore if you are going to do this. It won’t work, we’re going to be across the galaxy from one another.” You pause, taking in the look on his face. “And I don’t know if I can trust you anymore.” 

“What happened to you saying that you couldn’t live without me?” 

You roll your eyes, “That’s not what I meant! You had just woken me up in the middle of the night, and I was tired and irrationally scared that you were going to leave me like everyone else does when they're done with me and here you are so it looks like I’m right like I always am. I didn’t mean that I couldn't live without I meant that I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to ever have to. But here we are.” He looks at you with a look that only makes you angrier. “I am the cold, unfeeling girl that you get warned about, don’t go near her because she’ll only break your heart. I am calculating, and I lied to you. I made you think that I loved you, that’s what you think isn’t it?” He doesn’t dare say a word, “The truth is I have enough self respect to not let you walk all over me in the name of a love I’ve lived my entire life without experiencing. So we’re done.” 

He looks like he’s going to try and fight it but he closes his mouth as soon as he opens it and resigns himself. “If that’s what you want.”

“Yeah it is.”

You don’t say anything else, and he simply leaves. Months of feelings, of laughter, of moments of connection all gone with the slamming sound of a door and the sound of footsteps trailing down the hallway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: this was actually the second chapter I wrote for this story, so I've been planning this angst since the very beginning, welcome are almost at our second "era" for this story (a concept that'll mostly just exist in my head but I will explain after next chapter) so get read for some very fancy dresses and some more drama coming up.


	10. I wish you would

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you have to go home, but you're ready for everything that comes next

You don’t see him again after that night but life goes on. You keep moving,with the rational that if you don’t think about it then you will stop thinking about calling him, stop thinking about how impulsive you were and stop thinking about the burning feeling in your chest when you found out that he was lying to you. Contrary to what he thinks you are a feeling human being with buttons, and he manages to push the big red one to set you off. Maybe you’re better off without him anyway, maybe he was just another thing getting in your way, another distraction you need to right off in order to get the one thing you really want, but then again what even is that? 

The week after he leaves you to get the opportunity you’ve been waiting for. Mon Mothma steps down as chancellor of the Senate and as the representative for Chandrila. You knew it was coming but you didn’t know exactly when. Now that it has you excited to finally get the chance to do the thing that you’ve always wanted but on the other hand getting the job means that you’re going to have to go home. You haven’t been home in five years. You’d left to work in the Senate and never felt the need to go back at all, and even if you did need something you wouldn’t have gone. Going home means talking to your father, means talking to all the people you’d grown up with, the ones who once you were farther removed from you realized were just like him. 

But after a week, you go home. You step off the transport and your father is there to greet you. “The last time I saw you, you said you wanted nothing to do with me. You called me a traitor and you said that you never understand how someone could love a monster like me.” He doesn’t move to hug you, just simply stands with his arms crossed, face etched with something you can only recognize as the disappointment he’s had since you were a child. He’s taller than you, which isn’t a surprise considering most people are, but he leans over you more than most. “So imagine my surprise when I hear that my daughter is coming home.” 

You roll your eyes, “Hello to you too.” 

He stands there and studies your face for long enough to make you very uncomfortable. He flashes you a sly smile, “You got your heart broken, didn’t you?” He doesn’t wait for a response, “Or perhaps you did it to yourself, you always were so self destructive.” He seems happy to find something to dig the knife in out, “Seems I'm not the only unloveable monster.” 

You take a breath to stop yourself from stabbing him with your shoe, “Good thing I’m not here about that then.” He doesn’t respond, “You know why I’m here and it’s not to let you play games with me.” 

“Of course I do.” He narrows his eyes and uncrosses his arms, he thinks he’s won something. “I won’t help you.” 

You roll your eyes, “What did I just say about screwing with me? Let’s not play this cat and mouse game where you pretend like this isn’t the one thing you have always wanted from me. You came all the way out here to meet me didn’t you? Face it, you’ve played your hand here, you can’t screw with me because we both know we need each other for this to work.”   
He licks his lips and his posture becomes less straight, he’s folding. “You’ve toughened up since I last saw you.” 

“It’s what you always wanted, wasn’t it?” You shoot back, trying to keep a calm voice. That was the thing above all else he’d always wanted to drill into your head, having emotion is a weakness, never let anyone know what you’re really thinking or they’ll use it against you. “We’re in agreement then? Unless you want to run for the seat yourself, I doubt anyone would take too kindly to finding out that an old commander in the empire wants to represent them. Leave the safety of your little neighborhood of traitors and you won’t like how they treat you.” 

He makes a step forward, fist clenched and you don’t even flinch. His face contorts into that of the monster you remember so vividly, until it suddenly shifts back into the emotionless face he’s always been so readily able to portray to the public. “Don’t test me.” 

“Or what?” He grumbles something you can’t hear, “That’s what I thought. Don’t fuck with me, or I will bury you, that’s your first warning. You’ve always been so afraid of people finding out all the family secrets, well the devil has always been inside the house and now she has teeth, so I’d tread lightly.” 

For the first time, he’s rendered speechless and you revel in the moment. 

Two months later you win the election. Not that it was much of a contest considering your experience and reputation but you still count it as a victory. You and father have reached a tentative truce. He's gone back to parading you around like he did when you were a child which you grin and bear. It doesn’t matter to you as long as he knows who is in charge. Before you leave for Hosnian he throws a ball in your honor. 

It’s the same thing you’ve been doing for months, traveling rooms smiling at people who’ve known you since you were a child, talking about policy sometimes but mostly casual conversation. You wish that people would ask you more about policy and less about trivial things like how the weather has been (it’s always temperate on Chandrila, it’s annoying that anyone asks) but you oblige them anyway. 

The dress you are wearing that night is covered in flowers. It’s blush pink, and the bottom is covered in flowers of just about every color, they match the flowers braided into your hair. It spreads out a few inches from your feet, and the whole thing is big. It’s a princess dress if you’ve ever seen one and it might be your most favorite one that you’ve ever worn. Halfway through the event you find yourself hanging in a corner out of the room when a droid comes rolling up to you. 

You bend down to meet the droid even though you can’t understand what he is saying, “Well hello there.” You smile, “Who brought their droid to a party?” A pair of feet appear beside the droid and you stand up to meet whoever it is it belongs to. When you meet his eyes the air leaves your lungs, “Poe?” 

“Hey.” He says, running a hand through his hair. He’s dressed up, nicer than you’d ever seen him but he looks uncomfortable but then he meets your eyes. He looks into your eyes then looks at you dress and expression turns from uncomfortable to awestruck. “Wow.” He says, and the heat rises to your cheeks. “You put flowers in your hair.” He turns to look at them, “You look amazing. I mean you always look amazing but this is something.” 

“Thanks.” You reply, unsure of what else to say. “What are you doing here?” You're so caught up in the surprise of him being here, on Chandrila at a party being thrown in your honor that you almost don’t want to ask. You asking, means that the spell is broken at least for the moment and the two of you have to remember why he wasn’t there with you at the beginning of the night and why he’s been gone for so long. You asking means that he can turn around and leave again. 

“I-uh-I came to see you.” He admits, looking even more uncomfortable. 

“Oh.” That’s all you can really say, the two of you just stand there looking at one another. There are so many things that you want to say but don’t. You stand there trying to take in every inch of him so that when he leaves because he will leave, there’s no universe in which he doesn’t. As much as you wish that you could just take him, smuggle him back to Hosnian with you, force him to just stay in one place, stay with you. But that’s the thing with you two, opposites attract. 

You want to stay in one place, but he’s restless. 

(except for this very moment, at this moment you want to leave this party and all of the people inside of it far behind you) 

“Nice party.” He says, looking out over the ballroom.

“Yeah, my father went all out.” 

“You’re father?” He instinctively looks around. 

You cough, and think about what to even say to that. “Is alive, unfortunately,” You say with a smile, which throws him off. 

A long pause again. BB-8 beeps a few times and Poe looks down at him like he’s just said something offensive. “I-” he starts talking to the droid but he turns to you instead. “I came here because I made a mistake, and in true me fashion it’s taken me this long to realize it. I should’ve never lied to you, I should’ve told you as soon as I started thinking about it. You were right, we were in a relationship-” He stresses were and it makes you sad, “-and my decision affected both of us. So I guess I came to say I’m sorry.” 

The music starts to pick up in the ballroom, and you grab his hand pulling him out the door and up a flight upstairs until you're on another balcony, BB-8 follows, clunking up the stairs. It looks out over the city, the lights of the packed metropolis glimmering in the night sky. The light illuminates the cloud cover, and within a minute it begins to rain. 

A simple drizzle at first, so you don’t pay it much attention but Poe is already looking at your dress with worry in his eyes. “It’s fine.” You tell him, “There’s an awning that should-” Before you can finish your sentence a mechanical whine sounds out and an awning spreads over the balcony. “There we go.” You turn back to him. “But you were apologizing to me?” You smile. 

He smiles back, “I came all the way out here to make a heartfelt apology and now you're teasing me?” 

“I was only half joking, this is truly a momentous occasion. Poe Dameron apologized to someone, admitting that he was wrong even. What have they done with you in the resistance?” 

“People can change.” He says, and you can tell he means it. 

“Well I’m not sure that I believe that.” You say, looking back towards the ballroom. “But you're evolving.” 

“You could just say I’ve changed.” 

“I don’t want to give you the satisfaction.” You tease him again, “But I interrupted your big speech, please go on.” 

“Well that was kind of it. I am hoping that you’ll take me back because the other thing I realized? I can’t live without you. No way around it, no shortcuts, no bluffing, I need you.” The moment is kind of perfect. He’s standing there, big brown eyes practically sparkling, even in the dull light of the balcony and the droplets of rain hit the awning in a way that adds natural background music. You think it’s about as close to perfect as the two of you will ever get. But then you start thinking about what comes next. 

“I don’t know.” You say, and his face falls. The moment is gone, the perfection is gone and you are just left with the cold hard truth, and as it turns out being outside in the rain is pretty cold. “I can forgive you, but I’m not fully over it. I can’t just press restart and forget everything that’s happened, I can’t open myself up to be hurt again.” You pause, “And even if that wasn’t true, It won’t work. I’ll be on Hosnian and you’ll be who knows where, how are we supposed to deal with that?” 

He thinks for a moment, “Tell me you don’t want to make it work.” 

You want to make it work, more than anything you want to forget logic for once, forget about the consequences of your actions and you just want to go for it. A couple seconds before you didn’t think you were ready to do something like that, but the way he looks at you makes you think that maybe you are. “I want to make it work.” 

“Then we don’t have to. We don’t have to tell anyone-”

“-Because that worked out so well last time-”

“For real this time. We’ll make it work, no one has to know, I’ll come when I can and we can just be.” 

“Okay.” You smile, “Yeah let’s do that.” Suddenly, he picks you up in his arms and spins you around, holding you off the ground as he presses a kiss to your lips. BB-8 beeps happily from below you but you don’t notice because It’s electric, and you didn’t realize how good kissing him felt, how much you missed the feeling of being close to him. “Oh my god-” You giggle when he spins you, the dizzying happiness taking over. It’s only when you kiss him that you remember something very important. “Dress, dress!” You say pulling away and gesturing for him to put you down. “You're gonna wrinkle it.”

“Sorry, Princess.” He teases you. 

“It’s Senator actually.” You reply. 

“Yes, Ma’am Senator.” He mocks salutes. 

“Can I still call you Commander or were you demoted?” 

He narrows his eyes, “It’s still commander.” 

You bend down and reach out a hand to the droid who’d been watching the entire conversation. “And you must be Beebee, I’ve heard a lot of good things about you.” He beeps happily and uses a mechanical hand to shake yours. You stand back up and turn to Poe, “The droid is not sleeping in my bed.” 

“Okay, okay fine,” He says. 

The music from the party drifts onto the balcony and you suddenly remember. “So there’s a whole part being thrown in my honor down there.” 

“You should probably get back then.”

“How long are you going to be here for?” 

“Not long enough.” He sighs. 

“Well I’m going to Hosnian tomorrow, you know where to find me just don’t wait nine months to see me again okay?” 

“Promise.” 

You press a quick kiss to his lips and descend down the stairs, back to the party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys didn't think I would leave you in pain for that long did you? welcome to the next "era" of this story, in my mind it goes like this: 
> 
> "new republic" era (the whole story before this chapter) | the senator era (starting with this chapter) | ?
> 
> Can't tell you the name of the third one because it's a spoiler but let's just enjoy the senator era for bit because in the next couple of chapters things are going down, loyalties will be tested, new characters introduced and let's just say I am having lots of fun with it.


End file.
